The Summer Reading Challenge -- Sarah Nicholson

The Summer Reading Challenge, set up by the Reading Agency, has been running annually in UK libraries for over twenty years since 1999. Its purpose is to encourage primary school children to read 6 books throughout the summer holiday.

For their efforts each child is rewarded with such delights as stickers and bookmarks. Finally, if the challenge is completed, they receive the ultimate prize of a medal and a certificate.

This summer there is a sporty theme with the title Ready, Set, Read!

Co-incidentally I found some medals in the draw recently for the Reading Planet. Reading Maze and Reading Rollercoaster. These are some of the earliest medals given out in 2002-2004 when my children were just beginning their own independent reading journeys.

Visiting the library with my small children was such a delight, even when our home was already full of other books to read. The library had a copy of Chicken Licken which we didn’t have, it was probably the most frequently borrowed book for a time, and then there was one about monsters that jumped on the bed which also proved popular.

Each week we would return our books, show the librarian the filled in reading challenge card, each book given one, two or three stars, receive our stickers, and choose the next book to read.

I often set myself the challenge to read six books through the summer along with the boys and even designed challenges for the other school holidays. I seem to remember one involved colouring in a graph of how many pages each of us has read which corresponded to laps on a race track, the boys were big fans of Top Gear at the time so any correlation between reading and racing was a recipe for success.

This year I discovered that our local library has a support network of volunteers who help with the running of the Reading Challenge, so I signed up to help.

“You will be good at that,” said my youngest son who vividly remembers our library visits and then went on to recount his earliest memories of me putting on different voices for each character.

I’m not usually one for blowing my own trumpet but I wholeheartedly agreed with him that I would be a great ambassador. I also volunteer with Open the Book where we act out Bible stories in school assemblies, so I often get stopped and waved at by young children when I’m out shopping because they recognise me. What child wouldn’t want to tell me all about the book they’ve just read, or listen to me read them a story one to one?

Well actually one little girl did shy away from me when I offered her a story last week, but I brushed it off, she goes to another school that I don’t visit, so to her I am perhaps a scary adult. 

I still signed up a few new readers to the scheme, read a book about a monster who ate numbers and one about fairies and guinea pigs with a glittery cover, something I have never had the chance to read before.

I’ve volunteered to help out at a couple more sessions this summer and I’m really looking forward to it even if I only speak to a couple of children each time. Just being in that special space and seeing other parents sharing the joy of reading with their children was so rewarding.

I wonder if in twenty years’ time, they will come across their medals and fondly remember the summer reading challenges they completed? I do hope so.